Random vibrations with strongly inelastic impacts: Response PDF by the path integration method

This paper presents a study of SDOF stochastic vibroimpact problems using numerical path integration (PI). This is a challenging problem due to discontinuities in the state space paths of displacement and velocity response. It is shown that by introducing a suitable transformation of the state space variables, PI can be much simplified, and very accurate numerical results can be obtained. This is verified by comparison with extensive Monte Carlo simulation results.